


Epithets

by Transposable_Element



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Names, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 09:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2305049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How would you prefer to go down in history?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epithets

She had always hated being called Susan of the Horn—why not just call her Susan the Helpless and be done with it? Susan the Gentle was more flattering, but she had never thought of herself as gentle and didn't understand why anybody else would, either. Besides, it sounded distressingly close to Susan the Meek, Susan the Modest, Susan the Self-effacing, Susan Who Keeps In the Background While The Others Hog All the Glory.

She did her best to stamp out any monikers that referred to her beauty.

The epithets she preferred were those that referred to her skill at archery: Susan of the Bow; The Archer Queen. But even these made her uneasy. Was an archer queen a woman who could hit a target and look queenly while doing it? Or was she a huntress, a warrior, a woman who used her skill for some purpose other than winning a tournament?

She heard that in Calormene, after _l’Affaire Rabadash_ , she was called Perfidious Barbarian...Woman, and many other insulting names. She pretended to think these beneath her notice. Whenever she heard a new one, she sniffed at its lack of imagination.

Her siblings had their epithets as well, of course. Peter never seemed to care one way or the other about being called Peter the Magnificent; or perhaps he secretly liked it but felt he oughtn’t to admit it. Lucy clearly enjoyed being called Lucy the Valiant but didn’t seem to think it especially important.

The only one who had ever said much to her on the topic was Edmund, who was both amused and nettled at being called Edmund the Just. “I’d rather be called Edmund the Petty and Devious. It would be easier to live up to, not to mention more truthful,” he said to her one night after a banquet at Cair Paravel, when they were both a little drunk. The two of them then devised a series of increasingly silly epithets for him: Edmund the Mercurial; Edmund the Ambivalent; Edmund the Unstable; Low King Edmund; Edmund the Fed Up With Peter; Edmund the Occasionally Useful, Edmund the Cleverer Than You Are And Don’t You Forget It. 

She promised to call him Edmund the Mercurial in future, but the name never caught on. When they returned to Narnia and learned that their old adversary had gone down in history as Rabadash the Ridiculous, Edmund claimed to be envious.


End file.
